BENGALURU : Good morning, Bangalore!
In a blink of an eye, half the year has been swallowed into an abyss. Surely it is disconcerting to feel rootless and disoriented and many of us don’t even know what day we are at. Bangalore has seen an alarming spike in the number of cases and people have been running around like headless chickens, anxious and afraid that now no one is safe. Whenever I used to express my anxiety about the rapid spread of the virus, my friends and family would scoff at my fears and their oft repeated refrain would be, ‘how many people do you personally know who are afflicted?’
Invariably I would be mollified because truthfully I didn’t know anyone who was affected. It was usually a random neighbour of a friend and the like. Now the situation is very different! I know people who are afflicted. Friends, doctors and neighbours who I personally know have not been spared. Now the threat is very tangible and real.
Yet businesses, offices, restaurants and malls are open. The businesses that are really suffering are the hotels and restaurants. Retail outlets have printed the magic word ‘sale’ on their windows and even the faint-hearted venture in to ‘grab and go’! But somehow the restaurants have not been able to instill that confidence in customers to sit a while and enjoy a meal. I suppose the lack of alcohol service and the timings don’t really suit a discerning diner who wants his experience to be worth every buck. Everything is turning a wee bit crazy for sure! Household helps and others who had to be paid whether we were or not, have arbitrarily doubled their prices. The middle class is suffering with massive pay cuts and loss of jobs and our government doesn’t even pretend to care. The prices of commodities, diesel and petrol are going through the roof, and there is edginess and depression that seems to envelop most of us. Most of us are too overwhelmed to hold on to even casual conversations as there is little to say!
There is also a dangerous new trend and I like to call it the ‘lynch mob syndrome’. Shamelessly self-serving people create a conversation and facelessly generate frenzy on social media. It could be anything from old morphed pictures of particular communities to rumours. In a recent case, some self-serving people preyed on the tragic suicide of a depressed young man and turned the ongoing conversation to settle personal cudgels with successful people giving the word ‘nepotism’ a life of its own. The very same people who never shied away from nepotistic practices before! One shameless actor wrangled himself a political seat from the victim’s hometown after meeting with his grieving family and baying for a CBI inquiry which the bewildered family did not want!
Closer to home I was initially shocked to see how uncharitable some people were to others who were trying to do something useful during these unfortunate times, especially people who have lost their jobs or suddenly found themselves without a means of income. I have heard people in ‘secure’ positions implying ‘nepotism’ to young people trying their hand in a new business by implying that they wielded
influence by unfair means. I have also heard of people viciously snigger at people trying to show some creativity by deriding their innovative ideas.
My 90-year-old uncle, a retired judge in the Jaipur High Court, had an enlightening conversation with me when I called on his birthday. He said he has lived through several wars, the great depression, inflation, unemployment, the plague and famine. He says he lost count of how many millions of people died due to war or illnesses. He says we complain because we are confined with food, electricity, water and Netflix, none of which existed back then, and yet they survived.Maybe a change in perspectives can generate miracles!